UW-M News & Notes, No. 45, Winter '96

This fall has been a season of transition following
the completion of Herb Lewis' tenure as Director, Betty
Wass' retirement as Associate Director, and Kayla Chepyator's
visiting stint as Assistant Director. Our heartfelt
thanks to all of them for their many contributions
to the program.

In their stead, I have taken over as Director, Jim Delehanty
has joined us as Associate Director, and Eileen McNamara
has resumed her position as Assistant Director following
a year in Benin. As a former student in the program,
I reckon it has only taken me 25 years to rise to the
14th floor. Jim's rise has been much faster by contrast;
he comes to us from the Geography Department, where
he has taught for the last six years.

There have been other transitions as well. We are currently
in the process of inaugurating a new International
Institute that will bring together all of the area
studies programs in new facilities in Ingraham (the
former Commerce Building). While Ingraham lacks the
beautiful view of the Lake Mendota, we are looking
forward to closer collaboration with the other programs.
At the same time, however, federalr Title VI (FLAS)
and Fulbright is still in limbo, and the fate of future
funding for area studies is a cause for deep concern.

The fall has also been a busy one. Crawford Young and
Paul Beckett organized an outstanding colloquium in
November on The Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria that
brought a number of leading Nigerian scholars to Madison.
The deliberations were profound and even mildly optimistic,
in spite of the shocking execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa
and his colleagues just before we met. In the meantime,
I have been organizing the initial workshop in January
for our Ford-funded collaborative project with the
University of Dar es Salaam on African Expressions
of Christianity.

Director Tom Spear enjoys his new position at

As for the future, we are currently reevaluating our
Outreach Program with an eye to enhancing its effectiveness.
We also look forward to an exciting new venture in
Law and Business under the direction of Beverly Moran
together with the first ever correspondence course
on African history offered by UW Extension by Sue O'Brien
and Tom Spear. And we are even slowly making it into
the electronic age with a new page on the World Wide
Web and expanding e-mail networks on campus to tie
our far flung Africanist community of faculty and students
closer together.

... the lively presence of a number of visiting scholars
..have enriched us all..and in these difficult times,
surely that is what African Studies is all about.

We have enjoyed the lively presence of a number of visiting
scholars this fall, including Gora Mbodj and Baydallaye
Kane from Senegal, Eddie Webster and Luli Callinicos
from South Africa, Abou Bai-Sheka from Sierra Leone,
Jarle Simensen from Norway and Lawrence Tshuma from
Zimbabwe. They have enriched us all, and in these difficult
times, surely that is what African studies is all about.

CONFERENCE ON THE DILEMMAS OF DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA by
Bruce Magnusson, Political Science

Executions in Nigeria Have Poignant Effect on Opening
of Conference

The African Studies Program and the Global Studies Research
Program co-sponsored a conference on "The Dilemmas
of Democracy in Nigeria" which took place in Madison
November 10-13, 1995. The result of more than a year
of planning by Crawford Young (Political Science) and
Paul Beckett (Office of Inter-national Studies and
Programs), the conference brought together two dozen
distinguished Nigerian scholars from universities in
Nigeria, Canada, and tmerican scholars of Nigeria.
During an intensive three-days of discussion and 23
paper presentations, the participants explored the
continuing obstacles and potential avenues of hope
in Nigeria's decades-longFormally opened by David Trubek,
Dean of International Studies and Programs, the work
of the conference began following a personal remembrance
by Edris Makward (African Languages and Literature)
of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who along with eight other Ogoni
activists, was executed earlier that day by Sani Abacha's
military government. The major themes emerging from
the conference included

the institutionalization of "transition politics"
as an increasingly unsuccessful legitimating strategy
by military governments and their civilian allies

the militarization of Nigeria's institutions as a
major factor in exacerbating regional, ethnic and religious
conflict

the inability of an increasingly predatory military
regime to address Nigeria's economic crisis legitimately
and equitably and

the resilience of many elements of a democratic political
culture in Nigeria, despite the military regime's assault
on human rights and the associations of civil society.

Some of the conference participants re-emphasized these
themes at the African Studies Symposium, a public session
for the Madison community, held at the Memorial Union
and The symposium was divided into three sessions.
The first session The Struggle for Democracy in Nigeria:
Obstacles and Opportunities was moderated by Michael
Schatzberg, Department of Political Science. Presenters
were Warisu O. Alli, Emerging Social Forces and Democracy,
Aaron Gana, Old Breeds, New Breeds, and Moneybags:
The Political Class University of Jos; Attahiru Jega,
The Military and Democratization, Bayero University.
Stanlie James, Department of Afro-American Studies
and Womens Studies, moderated the second session,
Democratization and Cultural Pluralism in Nigeria.
Discussants were Adigun Agbaje, Party Systems and Civil
Society, University of Ibadan; Jibrin Ibrahim, Obstacles
to Democratization, Ahmadu Bello University; Sabo Bako,
The Religious Question and Democracy, Ahmadu Bello
University. Crawford Young, Department of Political
Science, moderated the evening session, The Dilemmas
of Democracy in Nigeria: Issues from the Conference
and Public Discussion. The discussion was lead by Oye
Oyediran, University of Lagos, and Attahiru Jega, Bayero
University.

Michael Williams, Political Science, and Dr. Michael
Afolayan, African Studies, contributed their time and
energy to the successful organization of this conference.
The Union of Nigerians, Madison Area (UNIMA) hosted
the visiting scholars one evening at a dinner held
at Bayview Community Center.

A summary and conclusions of the conference proceedings
is being prepared for distribution; for a copy, contact
Bob Houle in the African Studies Program. It is hoped
that a published volume of the papers may be available
in 1996. Major funding for the conference was provided
by a grant from the United States Information Agency's
"Democracy in Africa" program.

(Bruce Magnusson, a dissertator in the Department of
Political Science, returned from Benin last year where
he did research on democratization in Benin.. Bruce
was the rapporteur for the Nigerian conference.)

CHANGING OF THE GUARD AT AFRICAN STUDIES PROGRAM

As announced in the last issue of News & Notes,
the new chair of the African Studies Program is Thomas
Spear, Department of History. He replaced Herb Lewis,
Anthropology. Tom, an alumnus of UW where he did his
Masters in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1974, began teaching
in the Department of History in 1993. He had taught
previously at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia,
1973-80, and Williams College, Williamtown, Massachusetts,1981-92.
(See letter from the Director)

Betty Wass retired from the University of Wisconsin
African Studies Program last fall. As associate director
since 1989, she masterfully coordinated and faithfully
executed several projects, exchanges, grants, symposiums,
workshops on Africa since 1989. The African Studies
community celebrated with sincere appreciation her
years of committed service to the Program with a retirement
party attended by over 80 people on the beautiful 19th
floor of Van Hise.

The position of associate director is in the capable
hands of former UW assistant professor of geography,
eived his Ph.D. in Geography in 1988 from the University
of Minnesota. Jim spent four years in Niger in the
Peace Corps, with CARE. He also worked for two years
in Kenya at the International Laboratory for Research
on Animal Diseases, funded by a Rockefeller Foundation
Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Social Science and Agriculture.
He has traveled widely in West and East Africa. He
taught in the Department of Geography at the UW-Madison
from 1987-1994. He then worked as an associate scientist
for the Land Tenure Center in 1995 on a land reform
project in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

FACULTY/STUDENT EXCHANGE CONTINUES TO ENRICH WISCONSIN
AND SENEGAL

Research, lectures, materials, and friendships result
from the University Affiliations Program between University
of Wisconsin and Universit de Saint Louis The African
Studies Program hosted faculty members Omar Sougou,
English, and Gora Mbodj, Sociology, Universit de Saint
Louis who spent six weeks at UW during the summer and
fall respectively. Saint Louis student Ibrahim Thioubou,
Economics, was selected to spent the current year at
UW-Madison. Universit de Saint Louis will host UW faculty
members Judy Miller, French, Stanlie James, Afro-American
and Womens Studies, and JoEllen Fair, Journalism, who
will do research in Senegal next spring.

UPCOMING EVENTS

UW Africanist Speaks at 1996 Great Decisions Lecture
Series Richard Ralston, Afro-American Studies, will
present Africa: Should the U.S. Care? at the 1996 Great
Decisions Lecture Series on International Affairs on
March 20. Wisconsin Center, 7:30-9:00 p.m. The Series
is a nationwide program aimed at bringing the world
to the public to help them be better informed about
foreign policy issues in U.S.. For further information
about other lectures which also meet on Wednesdays,
call the Registration Office, Wisconsin Center, 608/262-2451.

ASP Spring Symposium in May The African Studies Spring
symposium on the politics of African theater will take
place in May. Professor Judith Miller, French, will
help coordinate the symposium. It will include scenes
from a satire prepared for perforse, French 595: La
Parenthse de Sang by Sony Labou Tansi of The Republic
of Congo. The play will be presented the first week
of May in the Fredric March Play Circle, Memorial Union.

Summer Institute for African Agricultural Research The
Eighth Summer Institute for African Agricultural Research,
funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation,
will be held at the UW-Madison from June 9-21, 1996.
African Ph.D. students who are studying in the U.S.
in the social, biological and physical sciences working
on African food and agricultural issues, and who plan
to conduct their thesis research in Africa may apply.
Deadline: February 1, 1996. For information,write
Sharon Kemp, International Agricultural Programs, 240
Agriculture Hall, UW-Madison, Madison, WI 53706.

Zimbabwe GPA Continues To Benefit USA Communities
(Zinta Konrad, African Languages & Literature,
83, sent the following message for our readers:) This
past summer 15 community college and K-12 faculty from
Illinois and Wisconsin participated in a Fulbright
Group Projects Abroad to Zimbabwe. The objective of
this project faculty an opportunity to conduct research
for the purpose of infusing Africa-related content
into the curricula at all grade levels. A number of
friends and alumnae of the African Studies Center at
UW-Madison were involved in this program: Project Co-director
Dr. Zinta Konrad (College of DuPage), participants
Martha Simonsen (Harper College), Ken Simonsen (College
of Lake County), and Janie Wimberly (Madison Area Technical
College) and External Evaluator Dr. Betty Wass, all
of whom reinforced the importance of teaching students
about African cultures.

One of the five dissemination workshops for educators
will take place at Madison Area Technical College,
March 22-23. For more information, contact Zinta Konrad
at 708/942-1079.
FACULTY NEWS

Peter Arcese, Wildlife Ecology, received 1995 grants
from the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Letters and
Arts, from Friends of Conservation, Oak Brook, Illinois,
and a UW Graduate School Travel Grant.

Marianne Bloch, Curriculum & Instruction, published
African childrens play and the emergence of the sexual
division of labor with Adler, S.M. (1994) in Roopnarine,
J.L., Johnson, J.E., and Hooper, F.H. (Eds.) Childrens
Play in Diverse Cultures. SUNY Press; and a final
report to the World Bank Girls Experience in Classrooms
in Guinea. She presented a paper Girls Experience
in Classrooms in Guinea on the Guinea project (see
News & Notes Spring 1994) with K. Anderson-Leavitt
at the Comparative and International Education Society
in Boston, MA in March, 1995.

John W. Bruce, Forestry and Land Tenure Center, manages
the Land Tenure Centers program of research and policy
development with Makerere Institute for Social Research,
Makerere University, Uganda. Spring semester he is
teaching a new course in Forestry The Ecology and Management
of Complex Production Systems with Becky Brown, Ray
Guries from Forestry.

Michael Carter, Agricultural Economics, received a
Ford Foundation grant for 1995-96 to conduct research
on Poverty in South Africa: Breaking the Cycle of Reproduction.

Jean-Paul Chavas, Agricultural Economics, and graduate
student Ragan Petrie, received funding from the UW
Graduate School for a research proposal Sources of
Farm Inefficiency in African Farming Systems: An Inter
and Intra-Farm Analysis of Resource Constraints and
Poverty. The proposal will continue to help fund work
on household economies in Mozambique and The Gambia.

Henry Drewal, Art History, was recipient of a Research
fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library, Brown
University, Providence, RI and 1994 Graduate School
Faculty Research Grant for spring and summer 1995.
He was a discussant on the panel Mami Wata: New Perspectives
and Peregrinations at ASA.

Jo Ellen Fair, Journalism, presented Global Meets Local
Culture: The Case of Senegalese Television on the panel
Africa Tunes In: Forays into the Mediated Construction
of African Identity at ASA.

Stefan Hastenrath, Atmospheric & Oceanic Studies,
published Extended-range prediction in the tropics
in the Proceedings of National Workshop on Meteorological
Research Application and Services, December 1994, Nairobi,
Kenya; Variations of Mount Kenyas glaciers in the 20th
century with L. Greischar and W. F. Hime 1995 in the
Journal of Glaciology. He is recipient to NSF Division
of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Dynamics Program doing
research on variability of tropical climate

David Henige, Africana Bibliographer, chaired and participated
on the Roundtable Issues Surrounding the Publication
of African Historical Source Materials at ASA.

Linda Hunter, African Languages & Literature, presented
a paper Metaphors in Language Categorization at the
26th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UCLA
in April 1995. She is head of the Hausa Task Force
for Africa Languages Teachers Association funded by
the National Council for the Less Commonly Taught Languages.

Sharon Hutchinson, Anthropology, was recipient of the
1994-95 UW Graduate School Research Fellowship to work
on the project Indigenous Prophets among the Nuer.
She was a Special Fellow of the UW Land Tenure Center
working on a project titled Guns and Maize: Changing
Patterns of Collective Violence in the Assertion of
Land Tenure Claims among the Nuer of Southeastern Sudan
and Southwestern Ethiopia. She presented Changing Nuer
Images and Experiences of Gun Warfare, 1930-92"
on the panel titled Coping with Power and Institutions
of Force which she chaired at ASA in November. Her
book Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War and the
State, forthcoming in December 1995, was selected as
A Centennial Book by University of California Press.

Daniel Kunene, African Languages & Literature,
participated in the May 1995 visit of Archbishop Desmond
Mpilo Tutu in Milwaukee and introduced Archbishop Tutu
at a talk at the New Life Presbyterian Church, Milwaukee.
Dr. Kunene was one of the main international speakers
at ALASA95 (African Languages Association of Southern
Africa Conference) at the University of Stellenbosch,
South Africa, where he presented a paper on Orality
in Written Literature: The Continuation of a Tradition.
He was awarded the Shuter and Shooter Publishers Literary
Award (shared with Dr. Molly Bill of the Witwatersrand
University) for the best literature article published
in the previous academic year, for the article Characterization,
Realism and Social Inequality in the Novels of CLS
Nyembezi. He presented a paper Beerhall Scenes in Zambian
Literature at the 7th Janheinz Jahn Symposium at the
Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.

Herbert Lewis, Anthropology, received a summer seminar
grant for participation in faculty research seminar
onDemocracy, Development, and Civil Society at the
Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston
University. He chaired the 1994 Oromo Studies Association
conference in Toronto.

Luis Madureira, Comparative Literature, received a 1995
summer Research grant to continue research on his book
project The Edges of a Liminal Empire: Hybridity and
Marginality in the Literatures of the (Semi-) Periphery.

Edris Makward, African Languages & Literature, presented
papers, "African Literature and Film at the University
of Bordeaux in March 1995 and Ousmane Sembene and Ben
Okri: The Camera in Contemporary African Literature,
at the Tel Aviv University Conference Breaking Boundaries
in June 1995.

Judith Miller, French, directed a play La Lettre daffranchissement
in May 1995. She published with Christiane Makward,
eds. Plays by French and Francophone Women. University
of Michigan Press, 1994.

Harold Scheub, African Languages & Literature, is
author of This is Gods Place, Storytellers of South
Africa Confront Apartheid which contains works of twelve
South African storytellers, historians, and poets from
the Xhosa, Zulu, and Swazi oral traditions, with analyses
by Harold Scheub. A quote from the preface: This is
a study that gives voice to the observers and commentators,
the storytellers and poets and historians who are seldom
heard from outside their immediate environs. The collection
of stories, histories, and poems that comprise this
volume was begun in 1968 and continued into the middle
of the 1970's. Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press,
Fall 1996.

Antonia Schleicher, African Languages & Literature,
received the Lilly Teaching Fellowship, from Letters
& Science for the 1995-96 academic year. She was
also awarded a grant by theUniversity of Maryland,
Eastern Shore, to direct a project on Yoruba Newspaper
Reader for intermediate and advanced learners of Yoruba.
Yale University has accepted her second year Yoruba
textbook entitled Je Ka So Yoruba: An Intermediate
Level Course which will be forthcoming in 1996.

Gay Seidman, Sociology, presented a paper Gold, Mines,
Migrancy: Unmaking Apartheids Legacies at University
of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Institute for Public Policy
Studies in February, 1995. She received a grant from
the Graduate Division for researchhold Negotiations
in South Africas Herschel District in South Africa,
summer 1994. She published Downscaling in the South
African Mining Industry, in Crush and Jaes (ed.), Crossing
Boundaries: Mine Migrancy in a Democratic South Africa,
Cape Town: Institute for Democratic Alternatives in
South Africa, 1995.

Aliko Songolo, African Languages & Literature and
French, had an appointment as Adjunct Professor of
French at Northwestern University where he taught a
seminar on francophone literature 1994-95. He chaired
and was a discussant on the panel titled Post-Colonialism,
Context and Identity at ASA in November. He was invited
to read a paper at the University of Leidens School
of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies in December
1995. He presented a paper Exile and its Metaphors
at the seminar titled Across the Borderlines: Migration
and Literature. In December, Dr. Songolo served on
the National Screening Committee of the International
Institute of Education to recommend finalists forition
for student research and study ih grant and Faculty
Development g semester, 1997.

Thomas Spear, History, received a 1996 John Simon Guggenheim
Fellowship, a Vilas Award for 1995-97, and UW Graduate
School Research Grants 1995-96. He has been appointed
editor of Journal of African History for 1996-2001.
He and history graduate student Susan OBrien developed
a correspondence course on African history which will
soon be offere chaired the panel titled Agriculture
and Social Change at ASA.

Robert Tabachnick, Curriculum & Instruction, traveled
to Namibia to join a team evaluating an experimental
teacher education program which was begun while the
present government was in exile in Angola. The program
help prepare teachers to develop a curriculum in schools
that aim to increase political awareness and economic
self-sufficiency.

Aili Tripp, Political Science and Womens Studies, received
an SSRC grant to return to Uganda during the summer
of 1995 to fill in gaps and get feedback on a book
manuscript she is completing on the political impact
of womens associations in Uganda. She presented Redefining
Politics: The Impact of Womens Associations in Uganda
on the panel titled Modernization and its Discontents:
Critical Perspectives on Civil Society in Uganda which
she chaired at ASA in November. She received UW Graduate
School Research support 1995-96.

Crawford Young, Political Science, received the H. Edwin
Young professorship 1994. Dr. Young received the Luebbert
book award for the best book in comparative politics
awarded by the American Political Science Association
titled The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective
(Yale, 1994) .

UPPER MIDWEST FACULTY

David E. Gardinier, Marquette University, presented
The Relations of France and the USA with Gabon During
the 1990s on the panel Western Powers in Francophone
Africa at ASA in November.

Lilian Trager, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, chaired
the panel titled Womens Roles in Changing Economies
and was also a discussant on the panel titled Urban
Strategies and Commercial Life in Africa and the United
States at ASA.

NEW MEMBERS OF THE AFRICAN STUDIES PROGRAM

Judith Miller, French, joined the African Studies Program
this fall. Professor Miller received her Ph.D. from
the University of Rochester in 1975. She has been teaching
in the Department of French and Italian at the UW-Madison
since 1977. Professor Miller has taught courses in
French and francophone theatre, French literature,
literature of Africa and the Caribbean, and French
and American Feminisms. She is author of over thirty
articles and three books, including Plays by French
and Francophone Women: A Critical Anthology (with Christiane
Makward) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Dr. Miller is currently working on a book-length reader
of the poetry and theater of Werewere Liking for The
Feminist Press. She will teach Theory and Practice
of French and Francophone Drama in the Spring semester.
The class will present La Parenthse de Sang by Sony
Labou Tansi of The Republic of the Congo.

Matthew Turner, Geography, returned from working with
the Centre International Pour lElevage en Afrique in
Niger to begin teaching in the Department of Geography
last fall, at which time he joined the African Studies
Program. Dr. Turner received his Ph.D. from the Energy
and Resources Group, University of California at Berkeley
in 1992. His dissertation title was Life on the Margin:
Fulbe Herding Practices and the Relationship between
Economy and Ecology in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali.
As a research associate at the Centre International
Pour lElevage en Afrique in Niger, he investigated
the socioeconomic factors affecting livestock-mediated
nutrient cycling in mixed farming systems of western
Niger. Professor Turner, a Sahel specialist, has also
done research in Mali and Senegal. VISITORS

INTERNATIONAL VISITORS ENLIVEN ASP

Abou Bai-Sheka, Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Department
of Modern Languages, Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone,
is doing research on the influence of the Temne, Limba,
and Krio languages on the Gullah people of South Carolina
and Georgia. Professor Linda Hunter, African Languages
& Literature is faculty associate of Dr. Bai-Sheka
for the academic year.

Eddie Webster,Visiting Fulbright Scholar, University
of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa joined
the African Studies Program and the Havens Center during
the Fall semester. Dr. Webster, is doing research
on the sociology of workplace industrial relations
in South Africa. His faculty associate is Dr. Wolfgang
Streeck, Sociology.

Luli Callinicos,Visiting Scholar, Sociology, University
of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa is doing
research on a biography of Oliver Tambo.

Habib Iddrisu, Dance, visiting master drummer from Ghana,
worked as a research consultant with Professor Claudia
Melrose, Department of Dance, first semester.

Gora Mbodj, Sociology, USIA Universit de Saint Louis,
Senegal Exchange, spent four weeks on campus doing
research on the sociology of gender relations in education.
He also presented a Sandwich Seminar and a lecture
in the Department of Anthropology.

El Hadj Mbodj, Fulbright Visiting Scholar at UW 89-90,
Professor Aggrg, Facult de Droit et Sciences Juridiques
et Politiques, and Director of Institute for Human
Rights and Peace, Universit Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar,
visited the African Studies Program as part of the
International Visitor Program of USIA in October. He
presented a public lecture Human Rights in Senegal
and lectured in Professor Aili Tripps class on African
politics.

Jarle Simensen, History, Visiting Scholar at the UW
Institute for Research in the Humanities from University
of Trondheim, Norway, is doing research on ethnicity
in African history and historical research, and also
on local politics during colonial rule in Ghana.

Lawrence Tshuma, Ford Foundation Visiting Scholar, UW
Land Tenure Center, Law, University of Zimbabwe, continued
his research on agrarian land reform in Zimbabwe and
actively participated in the African Studies Program
first semester.

YOUNG AFRICAN LEADERS STUDY ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT
The delegation of young African leaders are participants
in the United States International Visitor Program.
They will be visiting the United States January 8-February
9, 1996 to study Accountability in Government: Principles,
Ideals, and Trends in the United States. The African-American
Institute is arranging their national itineraries which
include a week in Madison from January 14-21, 1996.
The African Studies Program and the Office of International
Studies and Programs will welcome the following visitors
at a reception on January 17:

Gretchen Bauer, Political Science, Ph.D. 93,University
of Delaware, presented Missed Opportunities?: The Potential
Role of Trade Unions in the Consolidation of Democracy
in Namibia on the panel titled Trade Unions in the
Democratic Transition in Africa at ASA .

Ann Biersteker, African Languages & Literature,
Ph.D. 84, Yale University, chaired the panel titled
Newt Gingrich as American Africanist: Some Questions
Concerning Africanist, American, and American Africanist
Identities and Discourses and presented
American Civilisation and Other Technocratic Nightmares
at ASA.

Henry C. Bierwirth, History, Ph.D. 94, presented Entrenchment
of the Lebanese Community in Cte dIvoire, 1945-60 on
the panel titled Indigenous a CONGRATULATIONS TO AFRICAN
STUDIES STUDENTS ON THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

Travel Award The pre-dissertation travel award funded
by the 1995-96 Title VI grant offers financial support
for one graduate student from the African Studies
Program to cover air travel to Africa for pre-dissertation/dissertation
field work. This year's recipient is Kathleen-Mulligan
Hansel, Political Science. She will travel to Tanzania
to research her topic Gender, State and Society:
Negotiating Gender Ideologies in Contemporary Tanzania"

Jermaine Jones, History, Advanced Opportunity Fellowship
Amy Kaler, Sociology, University of Minnesota, MacArthure
and International Co-operaton and Social Science Research
Council International Predissertation Fellowship, spent
fall semester at the UW-Madison. Her research topic
is The social history of birth control in Rhodesia
1965-1980.

Nancy Pauley, Curriculum & Instruction, traveled
to Namibia as a curriculum development specialist,
leading eleven other teachers on a Fulbright Group
Projects Abroad grant for five weeks. They studied
family live, environmental protection, and issues concerning
the new democracy.

Jeff Shalan, Comparative Literature, did research in
Morocco and Tunisia on a Social Science Research Council
Grant.

Frances Vavrus, Curriculum & Instruction, is the
recipient of the Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation
Award 1995-96. She will do research in Tanzania at
Kolila Secondary School, P.O. Box 16, Old Moshi, Tanzania.

Harry West, Anthropology, Woodrow Wilson Dissertation
Fellowship.

Laurent A. Makward Scholarship LeAnn Hutchison, Sociology
and Molecular Biology, was selected to receive the
1995-96 Laurent A. Makward Scholarship to help support
the academic prgram abroad in Budapest, Hungary. The
scholarship was established by Professors Christiane
Makward, Department of French, Pennsylvania State University,
and Edris Makward, UW Professor of African Languages
& Literature, in memory of their son Laurent who
died in 1983.

DEGREES GRANTED

PH.D. Precious Afolayan, Educational Administration,
December 95, Defying the rule of conventional wisdom:
A study of resiliency factors in the school experiences
of African American female high school students with
a prior history of academic failure and grade retentiDominic
Ashley, CAVE, August 94, Barriers and Constraints to
the Recovery and Utilization of Indigenous Knowledge
in Sustainable Agricultural Development in Sierra Leone

Christopher B. Barrett,, Economics, December 94, Peasants,
prices and markets in Madagascar: Toward an understanding
of agricultural supply response to liberalization in
a smallholder economy

Gretchen Bauer, Political Science, December 94, The
Labor Movement and the Consolidation of Democracy in
Namibia

Victor Gaigbe-Togbe, Sociology 94, The impact of environmental
risk factors on infant and early childhood health,
nutritional status and mortality in West Africa.

Linda J. Beck, Political Science, presented Mouridisme
Moderne: The Changing Role of Religion and Politics
in Senegal on the panel titled Contemporary Dynamics
of Islam and Politics in Trans-Saharan Africa.

Bruce Magnusson, Political Science, presented Economic
Adjustment, Democracy, and Legitimacy: Lessons From
Benin on the panel titled State and Societal Responses
to Economic Crises in North and West Africa.

Patrick Royer, Sociology, presented Religious Belief
and the Competitive Spirit: The Wak in Burkina Faso
on the panel titled Ritual Politics: Power, Representation,
and the Negotiation of Meaning.

Joy L. Wrolson, African Languages & Literature,
presented Zimbabwean Community Theater: Text and
Subtext on the panel titled National Contexts, Social
Institutions, and the Construction o1995-96 Study Abroad
Programs The opportunities for learning in Africa continue
to be available to our students, as well as to students
from other colleges and universities. The African Studies
staff and faculty send their sincere encouragement,
to learn from every corner of their African experience,
to the following students: American University, Cairo,
Egypt: Mandy S. Chan, Daniel C. Rabe, Christopher
M. Reichert, UW-Madison

Students Sharpened Language Skills in Nigeria Antonia
Schleicher, African Languages & Literature, for
the third year, led a group of nine students on a Fulbright-Hays
Group Project Abroad for intensive study of Yoruba
and Hausa in Nigeria. Hausa students were immersed
in culture and intensive language Yoruba students improved
their skills through courses, and by living with host
families in Ife-Ife. UW students who participated in
GPA were Hannah Levine, Anthropology, and Robin Stewart,
African Languages & Literature.

RESEARCH IN ZAIRE by Richard Peterson, IES

When my wife and I told others we were leaving to work
and do research in Zaire, common responses included
"What about the Ebola virus?" or, "Will
you be near the refugees?" or the more general,
"Zaire? They've been having some problems there,
haven't they?" Indeed, few African

countries have been as quick to garner the popular perception,
skewed as it is, of being a true 'basketcase', or a
deep dark cavern of corruption. In truth, Zaire is
facing many problems both economic and moral, but our
recent work there confirmed for me again, that 'basketcase'
prognoses and proclamations of irredeemability more
often reflect the skewings of the media or academia
than the a and experiences one sees and lives. We returned
saddened by seeing the very real effects corruption
and economic decay can have on people's lives, but
extremely heartened and humbled by people's courage,
generosity, aliveness, strength, commitment, and tenacity
even in the midst of the difficulties they face. Despite
the dire warnings of how "nothing works in Zaire"
since 1990 when the country's political and economic
ferment took a new turn), we were also impressed by
how much did work, how much was going on, and how signs
of life in the midst of decay abounded. Out of this
cauldron, not only of decay but of life, we returned
having been given, one of the most fruitful,rich, and
enlivening experiences we have been graced to receive.

In Zaire, as elsewhere, it is vitally important and
essential to be affiliated with a local institution
that has the trust of the local community with whom
one lives. This does not always have to mean an affiliation
with a branch of the Zairian government, although neither
does it mean that seeking governmental affiliation
is to be bypassed. Much depends on the type and length
of research one is conducting. Any long-term or on-going
research projects would definitely want to solicit
affiliation at the level of the national government.
From my own experience and the experiences of colleagues,
this takes some energy and time, but most often has
been handled very professionally and graciously and
has proved immensely fruitful and beneficial. In the
past I have been affiliated with the governmental Institut
Zairois pour la Conservation de la Nature (IZCN), who
graciously arranged for me to receive a courtesy visa
and aided my research in numerous ways. Other colleagues
have gained research clearance and aid through affiliation
with the Institut des Muses Nationaux or various departments
of the National University.

We returned saddened by seeing the very real effects
corruption and economic decay can have on people's
lives, but extremely heartened and humbled by people's
courage, generosity, aliveness, strength, commitment,
and tenacity even in the midst of the difficulties
they f Our recent research trip to Zaire was relatively
short (4 and + months) and we were abhrough more local
organizations, as well as draw on previous affiliations
with the IZCN. These local organizations included
the Communaut Evangelique de l'Ubangi-Mongala (CEUM),
a Zairian Protestant Church working in the northwest
of the country; CEUM Loko, an integrated health and
development center run by the CEUM; the Centre Aequatoria
in Bamania (just outside of Mbandaka), a small but
very impressive African Humanities library and research
center, which, I was amazed to find, holds, there in
the middle of the forest, one of the best Africana
collections I have seen; and the Centre de Formation
et Recherche en Conservation Forestire (CEFRECOF),
a tropical forest research center in Epulu set up to
train Zairian ecologists and able to provide foreign
researchers with research clearance and affiliation
for short-term (3 month) research projects in the forest
areas near Epulu. In all cases, these local organizations
were graciously accommodating and went out of their
way to make my research experience with them a good
one.

Logistics are a challenge in Zaire and getting from
place to place can be difficult. Although traveling
is hard, it is certainly not impossible and one should
not forego doing research in Zaire just because one
has heard Air Zaire no longer flies. Even in places
like the Ituri Forest where horrendous roads with mudholes
4 meters deep and 50 meters long give one pause, one
finds a way through. Under such conditions, a motorcycle
lent to me by the conservation projects based at Epulu
proved invaluable. For traveling longer distances,
NGO and private organizations have filled the hole
left by national transportation agencies. Particularly
helpful to researchers is Missionary Aviation Fellowship
(MAF), which has regular flights between missions and
towns in many areas of the country. For a higher rate
they will also charter a flight. Numerous private
airlines have also sprung up, some more safe than others.
Those I know of and can recommend include Express
City, operating between Kinshasa and major inland cities;
Shabair, operating in the south and east; and TMK operating
in the east.
Buses still travel major routes in certain regions
but where there are no buses, one can hitch on commercial
trucks for a bargained fare. In the south and east,
newly managed railways, partly privatized, are reported
to be operating again after years of decay. Although
getting there was sometimes hard, being there was extremely
rewarding.

Communication can be greatly facilitated if one speaks
French and one of the four major 'trade' languages
in Zaire -- Lingala, Swahili, Tshiluba, and Kikongo,
of which Lingala is the most widely spoken. Learning
the local ethnic language of one's community is of
course preferable, but knowledge of one of the four
'trade' languages can bring one a long way. >From
the standpoint of infrastructure, comion like transportation
can be slow but not impossible. The best internal
mail systems are sending letters with a friend or even
trustworthy-looking strangers. For overseas mail,
church and business connections prove the most efficient.
MAF has regular flights to Nairobi and Bangui and
will carry stamped mail. In expedient cases the short
wave radio networks of Catholic and Protestant missions
and private businesses are a big help.Email has also
hit Zaire and in many large cities one finds private
fax and tel-sat phone agencies through whom one can
contact anywhere in the world for a price (the one
in Gemena was charging $7/minute). You will not disappear
from contact if you do research in Zaire. We found
the current Zaire, so often deemed a 'basketcase',
instead to be a land graciously ready to teach us and
help us Its challenges are enormous but its resources
for facing them are also vast. Rather than being dismissed
as a hopeless case, Zaire needs its real conditions
and its thousands of ordinary, courageous, gracious,
and capable citizens to be publicized, recognized,
and where possible aided, as it, a young but amazingly
rich land, grows and changes. Research can hopefully
contribute to this task.

I WAS UNABLE TO BLOCK ALL OF NEWSLETTER. I WILL SEND
THE FEW PAGES THAT REMAIN AT A LATER DATE!. Eileen
A. McNamara, 1458 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive,
Madison, WI 53706, 262-4461/233-6103, emcnamara,